


Scared

by DontKillAnybody



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Boone's POV but the focus is on the Courier, Can be read platonic/romantic, F/M, Gen, I'd put it lower but maybe there's middle schoolers who dont want to read the f-word, It's teen for language not for content, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 17:09:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14217810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DontKillAnybody/pseuds/DontKillAnybody
Summary: You'd think after being buried alive, almost murdered by radiation, and living in a desert your whole memory nothing would scare you anymore.You'd think.





	Scared

Six is gung-ho from the moment she spots REPCONN Headquarters, almost dropping her hunting rifle with its new scope in her scramble to test it out. (There’s a sheepish smile on her face, as if he’ll care how she treats her guns.) She picks a hill not too far from the entrance and copies his position, crouching and balancing her elbow on her knee, her rifle on her palm.

The order to shoot never comes.

She sighs and stands, motioning him up too. “They’re not hostile. Just…robots.”

Boone nods, knowing senseless “murder” isn’t Six’s wheelhouse. _‘It saves ammo!’_ , she would say, not wanting to admit to the Big Tough Army Sniper that she’s still soft.

It’s not too hot for noon in the Mojave but they’ll both be glad to get out of the sun. A few of the Mister Handys accost them on their way to the entrance but Six plays along, doing all the talking and nodding as they welcome them again and again. The door handle is made of metal and he gets out a “Hey wa—" before she grabs it, yelps, and lets go, comically wringing her hand in a dramatic show of pain.

“You could have said something, you know.” Six side-eyes him as she fishes a bandana out of her pocket. “How am I supposed to shoot with this horrible burn?”

He shrugs. “I’ve got your back.”

It’s cliché, and trite, and she knows it from how she recklessly swings the door open. It bangs against the side of the building, loud and metallic, and she freezes for a split second as the dark corridor stretches in front of her.

“You okay Six?”

“Yeah.” She waits a beat. The hand that reaches for her 9mm is slow, meticulous. “I’m fine.”

What does he really know about the courier? Death warrant from the Legion. Friend of escaped convicts. Collects teddy bears. Hates heavy armor. Can’t remember anything after getting shot in the head and buried—

….…..it’s none of his business.

Six flexes her fingers around the trigger and crouches down. “Let’s just get through this.” A deep breath in, and out, and she starts forward.

Boone pulls out his rifle and follows her in and tries to tune out the sound of her heavy breathing.

 

* * *

 

He hears the clicking before he sees her move, scuttling backwards down the path they’ve been taking up the mountain. The Geiger counter’s ticking disappears after a few feet but she leads him and Rex back to a large rock off the side of the road anyway, telling him to wait on the other side as she runs purposefully behind it to change.

Boone knows exactly what she’ll come out wearing because it’s the same thing every fucking time. And yet he still tries to ignore the silhouette that toddles out from behind the rock, oxygen tanks strapped to her back and covered from head to toe in red leather. At least she had the decency to skip the space helmet.

She can read his face even behind the sunglasses. “Radiation is not a joke, Boone.”

“You look ridiculous,” he deadpans.

Six rolls her eyes. “Take the Rad-X at least.” She tosses the pill at him and bends down the feed Rex one against Arcade’s advice. “You want to lose your mind and start glowing?”

“That’s not how it works.” He washes it down with purified water because it’ll make her happy and that’s better than her complaining the entire time they’re fighting up Black Mountain.

“That’s exactly how it works and I’m not going to go crazy just because _“my outfit is stupid”_ or _“Rad-X only helps up to a certain point”_ , which is ACTUALLY stupid.”

One more pat to the head for Rex and they’re walking again, guns out. She’s not copying his stance anymore, not watching him out of the corner of her eye to adjust posture as he does. There’s a small sting as he realizes she won’t actually need him for much longer.

“Besides,” Six drops into a crouch as the pip-boy starts clicking again. Boone catches the glance in his direction but pretends to focus through his scope. “Can’t let my boys lose it either.”

 

* * *

 

Raul had been with her when the Boomers spoke about the plane but Boone was the one traipsing behind her and making sure Six didn’t get stung by cazadors when she had her face buried in her Pip-Boy.

They’d crossed the same piece of coastline four times before she found the broken stretch of concrete stretching into the water close to the plane’s signal.

“Looks like this is as close as we’ll get,” he says. Hopefully this would be quick swim and then back to the Lucky 38 for ‘Murdering Caesar’ planning.

And it…isn’t. Six walks to the water, and walks back. She takes off the beret he’d given her, and puts it back on. She starts to slip out of her leather armor, and just as quickly pulls it back on.

“You don’t think it’s…. _in_ the water, right? It could just be on the other side?” She’s sitting down now, raising her arm towards him so he can see the Pip-Boy map.

“No. It’s in the water.” Boone takes a seat on the side, letting Rex rest his head on his knee. “Is that a problem?”

Six doesn’t answer, just repeats the rounds. Step forward, step back. Hat off, hat on. Zippers down, and back up again.

It’s been ten minutes. He doesn’t know what the issue is. “Do you know how to swim?”

“You’re the one who dragged my plastered ass out of the Ultra-Luxe fountain on Thursday, you tell me.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“ _Yes_ ,” she draws the word out. “I can swim.”

Rex lets out a whine and they’re silent again.

Back and forward, off and on, down and up.

It’s quite nice by the lake. There’s a breeze, it smells clean unlike Freeside or any of the NCR camps, and there’s something calming about looking out across the water.

Vault 34. Something Cass had told him after they’d had gotten back. About the flooded parts. How jumpy and paranoid Six had been inside the irradiated tunnels, something like her worst nightmare. How they’d explored the whole vault twice looking for a way to get to the reactor. How they skipped over two flooded hallways that Six refused to go into until they ran out of options. And then she took so long to go down that Cass had pushed her in.

Six didn’t travel much with Cass anymore.

Boone keeps his face immobile as he asks. “Are you afraid of the water?”

There’s an almost imperceptible jerk of her head.

He sighs and stands, taking steps until he’s right next to her before sitting again; Rex takes up vigil on her other side. Both of their legs are stretched out towards the dam, barely an inch apart.

“Okay.” He digs the rebreather out of her bag and sets it in front of Rex. “Whenever you’re ready.”

He’s always liked being quiet and alone. It was something you got used to when sniping, even while spending half a day inside an old-world dinosaur and coming home to a wife already asleep after a hard day of wishing to be anywhere but there. Or after, when he would just come home to his own guilt and temptations.

Six’s hand is trembling when it grabs onto his, squeezing too tight. “There could be anything down there,” she whispers.

He likes being alone with Six now, too.

She blinks once, twice, shuts her eyes tight and opens them again all the while flexing her fingers around his hand. Drops her beret in his lap and straps on the rebreather. Rex barks after her as she wades in fully clothed, following the ramp down into the lake.

She points a finger at him. “Don’t move.” The mask muffles her speech.

He waves the beret at her, almost a smile. “I’ll hang tight.”

She disappears beneath the water and he’s truly alone again.

Rex tackles him to make sure he knows he’s wrong.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t know why she’d told him to go back to Novac. Maybe she was finally sick of holding one-sided conversations. Maybe she didn’t want him to know she’d started using Legion armor, even though Cass told him anyway. Maybe it was telling her taking on a nest of deathclaws with Raul, who only used _close fucking ranged weapons_ was the stupidest idea he’d ever heard of. Maybe she just thought he was bitch.

Manny hadn’t said anything when he’d showed up, just grunted and vacated the spot in the dinosaur. Fine by him.

When he hears gunshots in the distance, it’s a welcome distraction. He levels his gun towards the patch of desert just outside of town and watches in mild disbelief as Veronica sucker punches a giant radscorpion. Six is firing her go-to revolver in its face, her mouth moving frantically in what he knows from experience is a stream of curses.

And then another scorpion crests over the hill. And another. And another. He doesn’t know why she’s not pulling out her LAER, the recent favorite after she’d claimed to have mastered his ‘sniper style’. Her face goes white and he watches her jerk towards her companion as Veronica gets sideswiped, knocking the scribe onto her back as one radscorpion raises its stinger over her.

He knows what’s going to happen even before she does it, and squeezes the trigger as Six tries to jump in front of the blow.

Its tail explodes in a shower of yellow guts over the girls, Six’s mouth working as she tries to spit out the bits that flew into her mouth. He takes two more shots just to be safe and Six finishes off the rest. She hauls Veronica to her feet and they laugh, still pale in the desert sun. It’s uncomfortable to continue watching but he tells himself it’s to make sure they’re okay as long as they’re in his sights.

And it’s worth it when Six plants her feet towards the dinosaur, flipping him off with a smile.

Relief is one hell of a drug.

**Author's Note:**

> I debated not posting this and I might end up taking it down because it's.....pretty short. I try not to post things like this on my AO3 but it's not like I'll ever write anything else for this game. And I kind of....kind of like it.  
> Also Boone is my favorite companion and I'm not sorry for disliking Cass.


End file.
